Which will it be?

The ongoing covid-19 pandemic and racial justice protests have come together to produce one of the strangest ironies of 2020: Many of the same people who publicly support defunding the police and curtailing the reach of the criminal justice system are calling for law enforcement to police minor behaviors.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, for example, applauded the city’s decision to cut $1 billion from the police department budget while deploying thousands of officers to aggressively enforce the state’s social distancing rules with fines and arrests. At this point, police have made scores of arrests and issued hundreds of citations.

The irony is on full display in Seattle, too, where the city council recently approved a plan to begin defunding the police while maintaining what The Washington Post calls “an aggressive campaign” to enforce social distancing rules.

Under those rules, individuals can be jailed for noncompliance, and business owners can be jailed if they fail to enforce the rules in their establishments.

Numerous other states, counties, and towns have deployed law enforcement to enforce social distancing orders, and they aren’t just for show.

Some have argued that the true aim of the “defund the police” movement is not to do away with the police (although more radical people may seek that objective), but rather to scale back the role of law enforcement with respect to minor crimes and crises in favor of more measured responses led by community and social service providers.

It’s clear that criminalizing and deploying law enforcement to enforce public health restrictions accentuates the policing of minor behaviors, something neither law enforcement nor the public wants at this point.

Any fiscal or jail penalties are bound to have a greater impact on those of lesser means. Poverty rates among Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans are double that of white Americans. And Black Americans, in particular, have been disproportionately impacted economically during covid-19. Even if there were equal enforcement of social distancing and public health restrictions (that’s a big if), fines or jail time will hit those struggling financially harder than those who are not.

For these reasons and more, policymakers should rethink their move to criminalize and police coronavirus restrictions. To begin this shift, local and state officials should at least clarify that criminal enforcement should be a last-resort action, preceded by efforts to educate individuals on the restrictions and their importance.